There are several musical training apparatuses conventionally known in the art for a trainee (user) to practice playing music, which apparatuses store music-playing data of subject music pieces and music-playing data of a plurality of practicing music pieces (etudes) prepared for each subject music piece. Such an example is disclosed in unexamined Japanese patent publication No. H11-167341. In such a training apparatus, a subject music piece and the practicing music pieces are linked by lesson conducting information.
When the user selects a subject music piece, the practicing music pieces prepared for the selected subject music piece will be given to the user, and the user can practice playing those practicing music pieces according to a given schedule. The training apparatus is equipped with a playing guide function which, for example, indicates the keys to be depressed along the progression of the music piece. The practicing music pieces for one subject music piece are generally provided in different degrees or steps of difficulty, and will be given to the user, starting with a lower level practicing music piece and successively grading up toward a higher level practicing music piece.
In a conventional musical training apparatus, however, when a user practices playing a subject music piece having a plurality of practicing steps, the training apparatus does not store the extent of the last practicing, i.e. to what step the user has finished at the last practicing. Thus, it is difficult to resume the stepped lesson from the lesson step which is next to the last finished lesson step at the preceding practicing, if the user has used, on the midway of the stepped lesson, another mode operation of the training apparatus such as a regular music playback mode or has switched off the power of the training apparatus. Further, it is difficult to resume the practicing after the apparatus has been shut down and the user has taken a break.
Further, if the user wants to practice with a plurality of subject music pieces in parallel, i.e. alternately, it is hard to resume the respective stepped lessons (for the respective subject music pieces) starting from the next consecutive steps, respectively, as the apparatus does not store the progress states of the stepped lesson with respect to each of the subject music pieces.
Still further, when the user selects a subject music piece to practice, it is not possible to recognize the pass/fail states of all the lesson steps of the subject music piece which the user is going to select.